Quick Start Texture Tutorial

This quick-start tutorial will have you working with textures right away and to make it really easy to follow along, I’ve decided to give you the files. Two high-resolution original files. One Anemone flower photograph and a Fine Art, grunge texture. Downloads At The End of the Post.

You’ll now see the Texture document in the layer above the background layer in the Anemone document. I have purposefully made the Anemone document a little bit smaller than the texture document. Since there is interesting detail along the edges of the texture that we don’t want to lose, we need to scale down the texture layer to fit the document.

Step Two: Resizing the Texture Layer

Again, this is not my favorite way to do this, but let’s start here and later I’ll show you my preferred method.

Make sure the texture layer is selected in the Layer Panel.

Open up the Transform tool. You can do this via the menu: Edit>Transform>Scaleor CMD/CNTRL + T.

The layer will now have a bounding box that extends beyond the document window.You may need to zoom out to see it.

Grab one of the square handles at the bottom right and drag up to the edge of the document. note: It doesn’t matter with this texture, but if you were resizing an image you would want to constrain the proportions by holding down the shift key when you drag.

Tip: Make sure that Snap / Document Bounds is selected from the View menu.

Hit Enter to apply the transformation.

Step Three: Setting the Layer Blend Mode

Let’s set the blend mode. Blend modes determine how the pixels of one layer blend with underlying layers. I’ll go into the details of blend modes in future tutorials. For now, select a blend mode of Multiply. Multiply is usually the first blend mode I try and does work fine with this file. We’ll also leave the opacity at 100%. Feel free to play around with the other Blend Modes and opacity. Note: a lot of them don’t work very well with a white background.

Set The Blend Mode to Multiply

The image should now look like this:

Texture with Multiply Blend Mode.

Step Four: Applying a Layer Mask

This actually doesn’t look too bad without a layer mask, but let’s go ahead and add one to play around with.

Click on the New Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the layer panel and a white box will appear to the right of the texture.

What is a layer mask? A layer mask is a non-destructive way to hide or reveal areas of a layer. Here’s the basic idea of how a layer mask works: wherever we put black, it masks the interaction of the layer, revealing more of the layer below. The opacity of the black will determine how much of the selected layer is masked. Think of painting in black as erasing away part of the selected layer—except that unlike erasing, you can edit the mask at any time (thus it’s non-destructive.)

Click the New Layer Mask Icon

Now that we have a layer mask, we’ll paint away over areas of the flower that we want to reveal more.

Select the brush tool

Select a brush that is soft edged (0 hardness) and make it around 200 pixels.

Select a soft edged Brush

To start out, let’s set the opacity of the brush to around 30%

Set the Brush opacity to 30%

Make sure your mask is selected—in the layer panel you should see a second set of lines around the rectangle. See the illustration below. Then, just start painting the center of the flower and you’ll see it brighten. You may want to paint away a little on the petals as well. I think in this case, it looks pretty good having some of the texture showing on the flower. This is what my layer mask looked like.

If you go too far and want to apply less mask, just switch your color to white and paint over those areas of the mask that you want to diminish.

Final Image

Here’s what my final image looked like, but feel free to play around. If you got lost or something is confusing, a perfect place to chat is the Facebook page.

Final Image

Get The Downloads

When you click the link, the download will start downloading into where ever you’ve set your downloads. This is often into a download folder.

The file name is: FrenchKiss_QuickStart.zip

File size is: 7.1 MB

Unzip the file by double clicking on it. Occasionally, zip files can become corrupt during downloads. If you are getting errors, try to download it again. I recommend the free Stuffit Expander for unzipping files.

I appreciate that feedback, Michelle. From my understanding of things I’ve read, I know that a lot of people use Elements for textures. Maybe the layer mask function is different? I do have a copy of Elements. When I get a chance, I’ll open it up and try it. Thanks!

Thank you for the interesting sequence of processes. having never drawn anything on the computer, or used it so creatively the project seems daunting. the instructions seem clear. thanks for taking the time to help others learn, grow and enjoy.!!

Hi Helene,
It can be daunting. I threw a lot at you in this post. I wanted people to have an overview. If textures interest you, but this post seems overwhelming, just break it down to one small thing. If you are interested in texture work, just follow the blog and there will be a lot of little tips that will help you break the ideas down.

Leslie, I have Elements 8 and I am trying to learn how to do this, but I have hit a road block and getting rather frustrated. I do fine until I get to step 4: Applying a layer mask. In MY program, I do not have a “new layer mask icon” in my layer panel. I have looked at the adobe photoshop tutorials (which are poorly done, IMO), and all I see is one for “creating a clipping mask” which I tried but apparently is not the same thing? When I tried it and then did the painting part, it did not reveal any of the image below the texture…instead it just painted a black splotch on the whole image. Can you help me figure out what to do?
Judy

I understand a lot of people use Elements. I have an older version that came with my Wacom tablet that I tried to load in, but it wouldn’t work. Perhaps I’ll download a trial version to check out. I’m sorry I don’t have a quick answer for you as I don’t know Elements. I’ll work on either learning it or getting someone who knows it to guest post, but it may take a little time for me to get you a response. Thank you for letting me know your frustration and I’ll work on it. 🙂

Thank you, Leslie! Finally I can understand and use masks!! I have Serif PhotoPlus X3, which is much like PhotoShop and really enjoy it, but had not been able to understand the instructions on using masks.

Leslie, thank you so much for this tutorial. However like a lot of other people I too have an old version of Elements so could not create the layer mask. I have been told that there is a way around this in Elements itself so would love to learn it. I found that using the erazer tool removed the texture but it didn’t remove just a bit of it[your 30%] so it was as if the image had just been placed on top of the texture and was not a subtle effect. I don’t want to make you have to go to more trouble but it would be good on your tutorials if you could say whether they are suitable for Elements users too. Really loving playing with your beautiful textures!

I’m not an Elements user myself, but I recently purchased Elements 9 so I could be more familiar with it. Most of the tutorials would work for Elements as well. I’ve found the big difference between Elements 9 and Photoshop to be in the layer grouping features. I’ll try to start incorporating more info about Elements, but not being an expert in Elements, I’ll only be able to tell you if it works in version 9. I highly recommend that Elements users upgrade to version 9, which does support layer masks. Thanks for your comment!

Oh it is great to know that Elements 9 supports layer masks Leslie! I will look into how much it would cost to upgrade! I might not be able to for a while though but as I am new to learning about Photoshop I really appreciate being able to learn from your tutorials. Thanks so much!

Hi Leslie, I just found your tutorial this evening and am new to Photoshop and am using 7.0 and was able to follow your directions and I am so excited. I’ve been playing around for months now and wasn’t able to do what you just showed me to do, one thing though, lol, I don’t know how to end my project after completing the step with the brush. I feel foolish but if I don’t ask I won’t learn. Thank you so much for your help!
Kim

Hi Kim, glad to know this helped. After you finish with the brush, you’re done with your master file. It’s always good to keep a master file in case you want to come back later to re-work it. That’s the beauty of layers and layer masks. To publish your work – share it, etc., you will want to make a flattened file and depending on your destination save it for web, save as a jpg. etc. To flatten just choose Layer from the menu then Flatten Image. Appreciate your question!

Thank you, for the link Luv, Kim! I enjoyed your blog. I’ve been finding a lot of blogs lately on vintage crafts and home decor. I’ve always been a decor fanatic. I’ve always planned on someday starting to do home decor projects as well, so it’s a delight seeing all the blogs and sites out there.

For those of you with an older version of Elements, you can get a layer mask by going to Layers, New Adjustment Layer, Levels,click OK and without altering anything on the levels box just click ok and then you will see in your layers panel that you have now got a mask you can work on

Hi Leslie … just wanted to tell you that this is my go-to tutorial for anyone wanting to get into the fun of texture work. Have just linked it to a friend again, today … thank you again!!!!Lois Bryan recently posted..Dewy Pink Asters by Lois Bryan

Topaz Filters…thanks to you I checked out their site and download one for a free trial. As a beginner in CS6, which filters would you recommend for me. I loaded the simply one to oil paint photos. I was blown away with the filter.

Hi Carolyn, it really depends on what you want to do. I bought the entire bundle and really love it. If I were to buy just one filter though, I think it would be “Adjust” because it has a variety of filters. The others are more specialized.

Leslie,
I am a brand new follower, and I have tried the above techniques using my own flower and my own purchased French Kiss Texture. Im a little stuck however. While I get a texture on my flower, the background stays the same as it was. I am obviously doing something wrong. None of the featured texture is seen on the background. Please help! Thank you!!
Cathy

I’ve gotten this one time about 5 months ago, but of course I’ve already forgotten it. Also, I keep getting download adobe player and I’ve done that 10 times I know and it continues to come back again and again. So, I”m just going to forget that. It’s too worrisome.

However, I do love your textures and work. One of these days!!!!!!……..Janie Greene

This can be a lot of work but, if you created a mask of your flower (Topaz Remask for instance) and saved it as a .png – You won’t get the white background when you follow the above steps in your blend process.

Hi Eric, actually you don’t want to do that (normally-there are sometimes when that is the right option.) The beauty of working with textures is using blend modes. Instead of being cut out and placed, it blends in and takes on some of that texture yumminess. This is probably the biggest misunderstanding of people new to working with textures. I often get emails asking me how I cut out my flowers and it took me awhile to realize that they weren’t understanding the blend mode aspect. Give it a try and see the difference. 🙂 Note that I do often cut out flowers if I’m going for a design look.

[…] cover areas of our original image, so we use layer masks. (If you’re new to textures, see the Quick Start Tutorial.) When masking your image, it can be useful to see the layer mask for greater control in […]

About Me

I'm an American photographer and designer living in France. I'm also the founder of French Kiss Collections, a digital design resource specializing in Fine Art Textures. Join me for news, resources, inspiration and tutorials. Learn to Rock Your Textures!
~Leslie Nicole